It’s that time of year when I see people posting memes about the previous year and what a dumpster fire it has been.
It’s funny. But I am seeing so many that it’s starting to influence how I am looking at my year to date. It makes me focus on all the bad things that have happened. It makes me perceive my year, at best, as just something that went by and, at worst, that everything has been terrible. And while this is the influence of social media, this is a choice.
How I see this year is my choice.
Don’t get me wrong. There have been objectively terrible things that have happened to people. People have lost loved ones, have had agonising relationship breakdowns, have suffered at the hands of people they loved. There has been political uncertainty, war, incredible suffering, tragedy on a scale rarely seen. I am not saying that how we perceive those is a choice – those are objectively terrible.
I am talking about our normal lives. These memes influence us to think that our work has been relentless, that parenting has been drudgery and that our lives have been devoid of lightness.
I realised we have been posting memes like this every year since covid. Which means we have normalised dumpster-fire life. We are losing our ability to see life any other way. We are living in shadows, echoes of what we wanted the year to be but never is. We have gone from curating our highlights to celebrating our lowlights.
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7).
Jesus is in the light so that’s where we should be – not in the darkness. If we live in the darkness, we are making a choice . We may just think we are posting funny memes, but what we are doing is training ourselves in how we perceive our lives. We are training ourselves to live in a place where Jesus is not central. And, since Jesus came that we can have life to the full, we are saying that we are dissatisfied with the life we have, including the new life we have in him.
We must make better choices. Not going back to curating a picture-perfect image, but celebrating what God has done in and through us this year. We should celebrate in gratitude what God has blessed us with. Paul told us in Thessalonians 5:16 that we should rejoice always, pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances (note – not for all circumstances, but in all circumstances).
So this year, I choose to look at my year differently and in so doing, set myself up for greater spiritual clarity for the year ahead.
God is in charge of my year and he is sovereign. I choose not to dwell on the things that I thought I wanted or needed. I choose to focus on the ways God stretched me, the blessings he lavished on me even though I am undeserving and the path where he led me even when I didn’t know where I was going.
I choose to practice gratitude:
I am grateful I have a toothbrush and a safe bed to sleep in at night and that my boys have a good home where they can laugh and still be kids.
I am grateful that when I spent too much time at work (to the extent that my Bible reading and writing were suffering), that God showed me how to take time back to re-prioritise on the right things.
I am grateful that he has worked through the hands of Christian writers to put the books that I needed in my hands just as I needed them – books that nourished me, and stretched me, challenged my thinking and helped me to change things that needed changing.
I am grateful for my boys. Always. For everything. Even when it is hard, it is amazing. Their smile, their hugs, how they think, their burgeoning opinions on the world around them (that are their opinions, not inherited from me) and their laughter. Oh how their laughter gives me joy.
This year God has helped me to get through things I never thought I would have to face, and has helped me achieve things I never thought possible.
And next year? More Jesus. More Bible. More prayer. More fellowship with God’s people. And in between that I have no doubt there will be more work, more parenting, more reading, more wasting time, more house work, more doing things like scrolling on my phone instead of being in the Bible before God leads me gently back.
No curating highlights. No celebrating lowlights. Just me.
But above all, God.
“I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.”
Psalm 13:5-6
So true, thank you for sharing